Unit 1: Truth and Credibility

At school, we have a subject called thinking skills, where we study Critical thinking. In this unit we are working on arguments and the credibility of it. The argument consists of a reason or reasons which support a conclusion. the argument is not reliable if we do not have an evidence. Moreover, we should know from were we take evidence and if they are reliable or not. The source of the evidence must be an eyewitness, a TV Programme etc. We have different labels of credibility, and we can have a criteria of credibility. This criteria can be divided as it follows:

• Neutrality : It consists of a source which is impartial  and which does not have a reason to change the evidence for its own benefit. 
• Vested Interest: When a source says something about the case but making it more for his own benefit, this does not means that the source is lying.
• Bias:  having a vested interest may lead to bias, which means having a preference for something or supporting a particular point of view. Biased viewpoints reduce the credibility of a source
• Expertise: Consists of evidence which is highly credible due to the fact that it is provided by an expert. Nevertheless, expertise is only credible if it has to do with the situation.
• Reputation: It consists of the position of a source. The higher the reputation of a source, the more credible it is seen to be. This does not means that this source will have accurate information.
• Observation and eyewitness accounts: Eye witnesses are very credible as they have seen the events. However, many times their credibility is lost since ,by retelling the story that they saw, they tend to forget many details. 
• Corroboration: This makes reference to pieces of evidence which support each other. In general, corroboration increases the credibility of evidence.
• Selectivity and representativeness: Many campaign groups only select evidence which supports their views. This one-sided election of evidence is seen to reduce their credibility as sources. Moreover, the presentation of unrepresentative information can weaken the credibility of a source.
• Context:  logically, context means the setting or situation where the evidence is produced. It’s very important to have context as to judge the quality of evidence.

We can conclude, therefore, that if we combine credibility criteria we can improve the assessment of the credibility of the evidence.

Another important point is knowing how to compare credibility and truth. Something that’s credible does not mean true, it's just believable. While true is accurate and correct. The evidence, for example can be believable but not truth.